toyi-toyi

After traveling for eight years through and in and out of this country, I have a baby and a house over here. And it only hits me after so many months, our baby is already sixteen months olds: “I am not a traveler anymore.” I hear it loud and clear in my mind, while I sit on our ‘stoep’ in front of our cottage.

She is taking a nap. Never sure how much free time she will offer us.

“Not a traveler anymore. Not a traveler anymore.’ It echoes loud. The silence on our property leaves much space for the thought. How come it only happens now, this realization? That long after the shift has happened? Was I unwilling to face it to the full? Who knows. The silence is not answering me. She just offers me space and time to wait for the next ‘aha!’ bells to ring in my ears.

Every free minute in the face of these trees, is a bargain.

I sigh.

As it goes in life, it was from the beginning so much easier to accept and drink in the good, the hopeful, the colorful of this country, as a full part of my life. Strikes and power outages were something exotic to think about and observe.

But yesterday, I took a short video clip of another ‘toyi-toyi’ in the central street of our small town. Traditional protest. Singing and dancing. A group of about thirty people. I watched it with Mira on my arms. I hummed along, moved my body and consequently hers, on the sexy, beautiful vibes.

What a contrast. At the one hand this beauty, generously there for all to absorb. At the other hand the raw and sad reasons causing the strike. Municipal workers, stealing millions of rands that were supposed to go to the poorest. Allegations of politicians booking rooms in very expensive hotels with government money. Millions of rands stolen that were supposed to give the rural, poorest communities better hygienic toilets. Many more reasons that I, still fairly new in this town either don’t know or don’t understand yet. Maybe I will always be an outsider somehow.

They dance. They sing. They are fed up with all of this. Yet I don’t hear any screaming in anger.

Buildings were set to fire last year, October. A hospital, the town hall, our community centre. Things got out of hand. Again, the underlying reasons still too complex for me to draw any straight forwarded conclusions.

But I danced with my baby daughter on the sounds of their toyi-toyi. That I do know for sure. An outsider, standing on the corner of Hill Street in the sun. In front of the ATM with the long cue and the Triple Stream supermarket with the broken trolleys. Always an outsider to many. Not in the least because of the color of my skin.

But I, somehow, do own that moment of dancing along. Whatever that means to the community around me. I have become part of this small town.

I often drive to town at about eight o’ clock in the morning. To sit and write in the only cafe in the main street. Away from the needs and tasks of being a mother. Some hours to work on that other journey of me that will never end, no matter in what part of the world I set my foot down. On my rides, I realized that, after moving around in this country, criss cross, for almost eight years, for the first time being at the other side of the equator, I will know in advance where the sun will be on my drive. When I enter town at eight o’clock in the morning, it will be on my left. On my way home at four o’clock, on Mondays and Wednesdays this usually happens, as I turn right into Xhologha Road, the sun will shine right into my eyes. Without sunglasses around, I quickly got to know the most dangerously blinding spots. Now sunglasses protect me against that.

Soon enough, we hit the road again for about four months. I will miss waking up and knowing exactly where the sun will be on my way to my words. I will miss seeing all those differences, so many variations, in that one small town that is also ours now. Surrounded by the mountain, the cows and goats on the road, the children waving at me, the young boys carrying the wood they gathered in the fields on their shoulders, the three flags in front of the café. Oh yes, thinking of it, in the café as well, I know by now in what spot the sun can warm my back at eight o’clock on a cold winters day.

I am growing roots in a land, so far from mine. I sort of dance with the sun, in a town so far from mine. But for our baby girl, this will be the place where she got to know me, got to know life, from her very first breath. That other home will be a story, a place to visit, for her.

Sunshine may move. Toyi-toyi may erupt, but the position of her being our daughter, so beautifully alive, will always travel along in the nearest position. Somewhere inside of my heart. Our closest moon.